'I met UK's hardest criminal who spat in people's pints - karma finally got him'

Cult gangland legend Paul Sykes was a "horrible and evil" man who spat in people’s pints, a former violent enforcer who knew him has claimed.

But Brian Cockerill, known as the Teesside Taxman, said the late Sykes ultimately got his comeuppance when he was brutally beaten with a barstool in response to his awful behaviour.

The disgraced bruiser never darkened the door of the boozer again, according to Cockerill, after spending weeks in hospital.

Cockerill said the one-time professional heavyweight boxer and debt collector, who spent 20 years in jail, would humiliate terrified locals in pubs in his hometown of Wakefield, and spit in their drinks.

Ex-bodybuilder Cockerill, who has turned his back on crime and now tries to discourage others, met Sykes in 1992 when he was on a job in West Yorkshire.

He said: "He was in Wakefield drinking in a pub and what he used to do, Sykes, he was a horrible man, he used to go to pubs and he would spit in people’s pints. People would go 'ugh' and push it away. Sykes was in this family pub, you now where you could have a meal.

"You are all sitting having a meal on a Sunday afternoon and all the families there. And this bloke is there with his wife and kids and he [Sykes] went 'here you, come here'.

“They were all scared of him. He said, 'Get up on that pool table' and he made the man stand on the pool table and sing 'Hickory, dickory dock. The mouse went up the clock'.

"He was laughing and I thought 'you are not right in the head you'. So that man and his kids and his wife were crying while this horrible, evil thing told him to do that."

However, Cockerill said on one occasion his vile antics came back to bite him hard in another local pub.

Speaking in a TikTok video, he said a man called Terry, who he said "was willing to fight anyone," confronted Sykes.

He said: "As he was stood by the bar and he seen him coming over and he was doing the same thing, spitting in people’s drinks, he was known for doing it, people will tell you in Wakefield.

"So Terry grabbed the barstool and f***ing smashed him right in the face with it and battered him and put him in hospital for weeks and it might have been months. And he never ever went back in that pub."

When he was not in jail, Sykes was known for causing havoc in Wakefield where the alcoholic, who described himself as an "expert in violence", went on to be banned from most pubs.

His wild tales are endless and clips of him talking about things like punching sharks "right in the f*****g earhole" still go viral to this day. Sykes died in 2007 at the age of 60 as a frail shadow of himself.

An author who spent years researching his turbulent life spoke about how opportunistic thugs often "took liberties" by roughing him up.

Jamie Boyle, speaking in a recent YouTube video, also described how Sykes was "feral" and would wake up in gardens and live out of cardboard boxes.

He spoke out after receiving messages from the public claiming they had witnessed the hardman getting a "good hiding" in his latter years. But Jamie said "even his wife" could have beaten up Sykes from 2002 onwards.

He added: "A lot of people would hunt him for sport in packs and it was quite common if you like to have 'oh I’ve just beaten Paul Sykes up'. Well you didn’t, you’ve beaten a shell of a man who used to be somebody."

Boyle also said that even in his latter years, Sykes was a “nasty piece of work” who would throw things at people, shout abuse and spit.